Mozilla is shutting down the Firefox-powered connected device project, laying off 50 employees

After sterile efforts to bring the Firefox operating system to "connected devices", the non-profit organisation Mozilla is shutting down the initiative and is also laying off its team of 50 employees.

Firefox OS was a mobile OS created to bring low-cost handsets to developing markets. The Connected Devices initiative was part of that project, with a stated mission to, "Influence the design of the devices and protocols that make up the Internet of Things to ensure that they embody the values enumerated by the Mozilla manifesto, including openness, accessibility, decentralisation, interoperability, security, privacy and individual empowerment."

The initiative which was an attempt to grow beyond browsers is ending and the company has confirmed the layoff also. Ari Jaaksi, the senior vice president in charge of the effort, is leaving, and last week, Bertrand Neveux, director of the group's software had also departed. The CNET report said, "Some affected employees are getting new roles in Mozilla, but those losing jobs get severance and job-hunting benefits."

Though it may look like a sign of struggle, however, according to a Mozilla spokesperson, the move is just about a shift in company’s focus.

"We have shifted our internal approach to the internet-of-things opportunity," Mozilla spokesperson said, "to step back from a focus on launching and scaling commercial products to one focused on research and advanced development, dissolving our connected devices initiative and incorporating our internet-of-things explorations into an increased focus on emerging technologies."

The layoff might also help Mozilla to focus on Project Quantum, Mozilla’s next-generation web engine.
The spokesperson said, "Quantum is all about making extensive use of parallelism and fully exploiting the modern hardware. Quantum has some components, including several adopted from the Servo project."

The engine is expected to get operational by the end of 2017.